Marketplace

On air since 1972, Marketplace is Canada’s consumer watchdog. We get the goods to help you shop smarter and protect yourself from slick scams and misleading marketing claims. We investigate the products and services we all use every day and push companies and government for answers. And we expose the truth on stories that matter to you and your family.

Episodes

Perfect for Business Ethics, this Marketplace documentary goes undercover to expose the techniques used in door-to-door sales of water purification systems, devices that can cost thousands of dollars, but which most people simply may not need. Co-host Tom Harrington investigates the dubious scare tactics used to entice people to buy.

Every year, 250,000 Canadians get sick from an infection while staying in hospitals. Many infections could be prevented, but not just one doctor is to blame. Using hidden cameras, Erica Johnson exposes medical staff that could be doing more to help and may be putting your life at risk.

Marketplace reveals how big stores are hacked for personal information more often than we're told. From a street corner in downtown Vancouver, Wendy Mesley enlists the help of an internet security expert to do what hackers do easily every day — that is, grab your personal information out of thin air. Vulnerability to this crime is a major concern for ...

Their dorky company names and their cute little cars give off an air of friendly, helpful competence. But do the people who make computer house calls actually know what they're doing? As Erica Johnson's hidden-camera investigation reveals, most of the time the answer is "no". The Marketplace team modified a computer to simulate a common hardware failure. Then they called in the ...

You've seen the Health Check logo. If a product bears the logo, that means Heart and Stroke has evaluated it and concluded it complies with their criteria, which is based on the recommendations of Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating. Does the logo represent a healthy choice? The answer is complicated. As Wendy Mesley reports, some of Heart and Stroke's Health ...

If a person has a mortgage on their home, chances are good they also have mortgage insurance. The idea is that if they should become seriously ill or die before paying off the mortgage, the coverage will kick in and pay it off for them. The reality falls a little short of that. In this Marketplace investigation, we meet two families ...

You may be surprised to learn that the vast majority of violent assaults in Canadian nursing homes involve one resident attacking another. You may be even more surprised to learn that the problem has been growing for years, and that one public report after another has recommended changes (to funding, to training, to institutional protocols) but that these recommendations have been ...

Eating local is hot this year. But here's the thing. "Product of Canada" doesn't actually mean the food is from around here. All it means, legally speaking, is that at least 51% percent of its production costs were spent in Canada. As Wendy Mesley's report reveals, sometimes "Product of Canada" has been to three continents before it lands here.

Marketplace has seen it all when it comes to bad service, unsafe products and schemes. Over the years, they’ve uncovered all kinds of tricks companies employ to separate customers from their cash. To encourage smart shopping strategies, in this episode, Marketplace compiles the worst offenses companies commit to reach into your wallet.

Thieves are breaking into stores, gas stations and restaurants and actually ripping out the hard drives attached to the point of sale terminals used to swipe your plastic. While stores and restaurants are keeping quiet, and credit card companies cover your losses, in the end, we all pay a price and, for the crooks, it's a windfall.